Shotguns
__NOWYSIWYG__ Shotguns Ins and Outs of Shotguns In Dead Frontier, Shotguns are the weaker, yet more efficient version of machine guns. Shotguns are generally used in close quarters combat and are generally not favored at longer ranges, due to pellets spreading too thin to hit anything efficiently. Every well-aimed shotgun pellet adds up to the total damage per shot, but then again you could also do very little damage if too few pellets hit the target. Shotgun damage is noted as (Damage per Pellet) x (Pellets per Shot) = Damage, so for example, the Washington 870 with 3.3 x 8 damage can do up to 26.4 damage per shot. Due to the small pellets of the buckshot, versus the larger bullets of other firearms, shotguns cannot score a critical hit. Shotgun blasts have a fixed 30 degree spread for their buckshot, biased to the right side of the cursor instead of being distributed evenly on both sides. Accuracy does not decrease this buckshot spread, but instead simply centers the placement of the shot. Types of Shotguns There are many different types of shotguns - ranging from break-action to pump-action to semi-automatic to lever-action etc, but in Dead Frontier, the shotguns are simply categorized by their fire rate. The four types of shotguns are: *Single Shot: Only represented by the Mancini M1 and the Highlander, the two first shotgun available in the game. Only one shot per second. *Pump-action: Starting at Washington 870, pump-action shotguns are available for almost all levels of proficiency, all the way to the 120 proficiency Ace Barrel and X-Mannberg. Scoring 1.5 shots per second, these offer a good choice for crowd control in experienced hands. *Semi-automatic: Includes, but is not limited to the Sega-20, Sweeper and Biforce C7. Scores two shot per second; makes for an average crowd control in semi-experienced hands. *Fully-automatic: Includes, but is not limited to USAN-12, AA-12 and Dusk Striker. Firing 3 times per second, these offer the best crowd control of all shotgun types. While other ammunitions' caliber types are simply measured in milimeters or inches (higher numbers are better), shotgun shells measurement uses the "gauge" system that represents more powerful cartridge with a lower number: *20 gauge *16 gauge *12 gauge *10 gauge This is caused by the diameter of the shotgun's barrel - the lower the gauge number, the larger the barrel. Quoted from Wikipedia: Gauge is determined from the weight of a solid sphere of lead that will fit the bore of the firearm, and is expressed as the multiplicative inverse of the sphere's weight as a fraction of a pound (e.g., a 1⁄12th pound ball fits a 12-gauge bore. Obviously - a larger barrel allows for larger pellets and more gunpowder to be fired at once, this is why larger barreled shotguns do more damage. Requirements Shotguns are one of the few weapons that have a high strength requirement. The first shotgun available, the Mancini M1, requires 10 shotgun proficiency points to use. The Police Officer class also starts out with a Mancini M1 Shotgun, along with 25 shells. From the third shotgun onwards, there is a strength requirement, usually close to the proficiency requirement. Reloading is helpful after agility and stats for other weapons are satisfactory, constant fire with 100+ reloading will keep zombies at bay and save your life on many occasions. Accuracy centers the placement of the shot, but is generally considered a dump stat for Shotguns for not helping at solving the buckshot spread problem at all. Looting/Scouting Generating a significant amount of aggro with each blast, shotguns are a poor choice if you are trying to avoid large numbers of zombies. To maximize their effectiveness, you will want to utilize the following tips: * Wait until the zombie is at point-blank range. This ensures that every pellet will strike. * If you are trying to get somewhere and a zombie blocks your path, a point-blank blast can push them out of the way. * While usage of shotgun during looting should be overall limited, ammo conservation should not be part of your concern at all. Shotguns are known to have the cheapest, most generous and longest-lasting ammunition type of all weapons in the game, so even a stack of shotgun shells should be able to last through the entire looting trip. Aggro Combat Shotguns are primarily utilized as self-defense instead of grinding weapons during aggro situations. While shotguns offer a lot of advantages such as extremely high knockback, passable accuracy, cheap maintenance cost and ease of use, as well as reduced overkill damage due to spare pellets passing through the original target, their severely limited DPS severely limits their overall potential and discourages players from using them to grind for an extended amount of time. * Due to the wide spread shot that simply cannot be fixed through increasing Accuracy, Shotguns should almost always be used at close to middle range in order to maximize the amount of contacting pellets. If required to fight at medium to long range, try aiming slightly to the left to compensate for the spread bias. * Shotguns pairs well Explosives to form an effective, cost efficient grinding setup: Explosives provide the DPS that Shotgun lacks, while Shotgun provides the knockback that Explosives do not have. Advantages and Disadvantages Advantages * Extremely high knockback, comparable to Miniguns. * Shotguns require no critical hit due to them not having a crit chance. * Shotgun shells are the most generously available type of ammunition, with prices for them being always significantly cheaper than handguns and rifle ammunition of similar proficiency level. * If a zombie is killed, the pellets will pass through the zombie and hit the ones behind it, minimizing overkill damage and increasing crowd control. Disadvantages * Highest chance of causing aggro spikes, even higher than Rifle-caliber Machine Guns. * Shotguns have overall very poor DPS potential, frequently losing to even Pistols or Rifles of similar proficiency level. * They have the second smallest ammo box (400 per box). * Buckshot spread means Shotguns perform extremely poorly at extended range, even with high Accuracy investment. List of Shotguns The scrap values in brackets indicate the scrap price with Master Crafted (MC) items. Category:Weapons